"Thanks, very helpful. Our dance teacher feels we should perform the more complex steps in order to show the judges our level of competance. You seem to indicate it is better to do the the more basic steps, and do those well. Any further comments ?"

But a teacher steering you away from basic elements may not be one who feels they have all that much of value to pass on about those. There's not a lot of point of putting effort into studying any particular aspect of dancing with a teacher who isn't inspired by that topic.